Reflections and ramblings from life in community in Birmingham city centre.

Friday, 2 December 2016

On Our Doorstep

As you probably know, we live in a church in city centre Birmingham. It is, in many ways, a strange place to live: our nearest neighbours are mostly not other homes, but shops and offices. Those who sleep nearby are usually transient: the luckier ones, in local hotels; the unluckier, in local doorways.

Sadly, we have become accustomed, though I hope not hardened, to the reality of seeing homeless people on the streets of the city centre, and often, quite literally, on our doorstep. Even in the three and a half years we have been here, we don’t need statistical evidence to tell us that homelessness in our city has increased: we have seen it happening before our very eyes.

One evening,
a few weeks ago, when we were returning late in the evening from I don’t remember where, we came to
the front door of the church to find a homeless man curled up in a sleeping bag
on the porch.

I would be
the first to admit that the homeless community, if such a disparate group can
be described as such, is not one with which I have found it easy to engage. I
am not proud of the fact that often, I ‘walk by on the other side’ but I can’t
deny the reality. There are good reasons: I am busily engaged with other things
which are equally valid and valuable ministries; and less good ones: mostly
tied up, almost certainly in fear and prejudice, but couched more comfortably
in the language of complex challenges which are beyond my capacities.

But this
particular encounter has stayed with me. It struck me because of the exchange
of words, and in particular because of his opening words to us as we
approached: “I’m sorry”

It struck me
because it drew attention to our creation of and participation in the kind of world in which a man forced to sleep on a church door step feels he needs to
apologise to the one going in to sleep in a warm bed inside. Those words
stopped me in my tracks and made me deeply, deeply sad for our society.

He explained
he had chosen the spot because our CCTV made him feel safer. He had recently
returned to Birmingham, was not familiar with the communities here that might
offer a degree of comfort and safety to many of those who are outside our
church. He offered to move away.

I did not
invite him in: maybe I should have, but maybe not. At least I was able to
assure him he was welcome to sleep on our porch. I was able to say that it
should be me that was apologising, for a society and situation in which he had
no choice but to sleep outside. I was able to offer a cup of hot coffee and to
hear something of his story, albeit for only a few minutes. I imagine it is a story
which is both unique and also exactly the same as the many others who spend
their nights in our city centre’s doorways.

He told us
he had a housing appointment the following morning. I haven’t seen him since. I
hope his story, at least, has a happy ending. There are many which don’t. Only last week the local news told us of a homeless man discovered dead on the street. He was in his thirties. The same age, more or less, as me.

When we moved here, one of the roles the church asked of us was to listen to the voices of the city. The homeless who congregate around our building are, perhaps more than
any other, one of the groups whose voice we should be straining to hear. I have
not found it easy.

Though he
will never know it, I am grateful for one tiny opportunity to hear something of one of those
voices.